It didn’t take long for the speculation to start: if women unintentionally get pregnant while taking the defective birth control pills that Pfizer recalled this week, could they, would they, sue?
Earlier this week, Pfizer recalled 1 million packages of pills — 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of generic Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets — after uncovering a packaging error that included too many active tablets in some packets and not enough in others. It cautioned women to use alternate contraceptive methods because they were at greater risk of becoming pregnant. In a statement, the company said that the recalled pills don’t pose “any immediate health risks.” That, of course, depends completely upon how you define “health risks.” Assuming you’re taking the pills to avoid having a baby but end up faced with what to do about an unwanted pregnancy, the ensuing stress could arguably count as a mental health risk, at the least. An unanticipated pregnancy is certainly more than just a minor inconvenience.
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For most women, it’s likely too early to know if the packaging defect has resulted in unintended pregnancy. But already, bloggers have begun running scenarios.
LawInfo wondered whether product liability lawsuits — which “generally involve a product that was designed defectively or gave an insufficient warning to the consumer who was eventually harmed as a result of the design or warning defect” — might bubble up.
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This would not be the first example of a “wrongful pregnancy” case, according to I. Glenn Cohen, assistant professor and co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, who spoke with MyHealthNewsDaily:
Similar cases have allowed people to sue for things like unwanted pregnancies after botched vasectomies. In the past, there has even been a case in which a woman successfully sued a pharmacist for a pregnancy that resulted from errors in filling the woman’s birth control prescriptions, Cohen said.
The best chance for a case, however, would be for affected women with unwanted pregnancies to band together and bring a class-action lawsuit against Pfizer, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. Such a case could ask for considerably more money than an individual case, and would be more attractive to lawyers, Caplan said.
“I’m sure some enterprising lawyer is already thinking of bringing a class-action lawsuit…against the company,” Cohen said.
It’s unlikely that any settlement would approach the cost of raising a child, which, at $226,920, may in itself be a fairly effective method of birth control.
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Bonnie Rochman is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @brochman. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
![End Of An Era: Lipitor Goes Generic
by Kristofor Husted
- December 1, 2011
Medication used for lowering cholesterol should also be lower in price now that two generic brands have entered the ring.
Back in 1996, cholesterol-fighter Lipitor became the fifth drug of its kind to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This week, the biggest hit in the history of the pharmaceutical industry lost its patent protection in the U.S., opening the door to generic versions to replace the iconic brand.
One version of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor (generic name is atorvastatin) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday. Pfizer Inc.’s patent on the drug expired the same day.
The India-based Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. gained approval to make generic atorvastatin calcium tablets in 10 milligram (mg), 20 mg, 40 mg and 80 mg strengths. The drug will be manufactured by Ohm Laboratories in New Brunswick, N.J.
Earlier Wednesday, New Jersey-based Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. began selling a generic version of Lipitor in partnership with Pfizer.
Watson Chief Executive Paul Bisaro told CNBC that his company’s generic version of Lipitor will sell at a 50 percent discount from its recent price as a brand-name drug. According to the Wall Street Journal, recent list prices for Lipitor range from $3.50 to $5 per pill, depending on the region of the country.
“This medication is widely used by people who must manage their high cholesterol over time, so it is important to have affordable treatment options,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “We are working very hard to get generic drugs to people as soon as the law will allow.”
Backed by Pfizer’s marketing muscle, Lipitor racked up total sales of well over $100 billion in the 14 years since it hit the market. In the new era of generic competition, the drugmaker is being pretty aggressive in trying to preserve its turf.
For starters, Pfizer is offering discounts on the brand-name version of Lipitor — with prices as low as $4 a month for privately insured patients, down from typical co-pays of $25 to $45, according to the L.A. Times.
It’s also asking drugstores to block prescriptions for the generic and fill them with Lipitor instead for the next six months, when generics won’t be widely available. That strategy has drawn the scrutiny of Capitol Hill lawmakers, as The New York Times reports.
So what does all this mean for pocketbooks? At first, prices for Lipitor and the equivalent generics should drop a little. After six months, when more many companies will be allowed to produce generic Lipitor, the price for the drug should plummet to pennies a day.
Consumers who get generic Lipitor now can expect their insurance copayments to drop right away. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]
Gabriel F. Zambrano
Gabriel F. Zambrano, P.A.
www.RecallAttorneys.com
www.GabrielFZambrano.com
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